Now that both political conventions have come and gone, how about thinking back to those magical days of the Olympics on TV, the amazing athletes, their skills and sportsmanship and friendships in picture-perfect Paris. Just what we needed to interrupt that terrible news about war in Ukraine and Gaza. The wildfires in California. Unbearable heat all across the South and Southwest. And, the nasty politicking most everywhere else. Among what the Olympics and conventions crowded out of the news was a story about two American astronauts stuck in a Boeing company spaceship launched two months ago but, due to a helium leak, now are stuck in the International Space Station, having waited more than 60 days to go home. NASA says the two astronauts will leave the station next February. That’s in 2025. “This is not an emergency,” NASA says. “There is nothing to worry about,” because a spaceship can be borrowed for the astronauts from the SpaceX company owned by Elon Musk. Elon Musk, the multibillionaire richest person in the world who also owns the Tesla car company which recently was ordered by the Federal Highway Safety Administration to recall more than a million Teslas troubled by an autopilot system described by the safety administration as dangerous. Which is causing me, and I suspect much of the world, to wonder if Elon Musk is trouble prone. Is Elon Musk looking for trouble? Should astronauts be afraid to fly in an Elon Musk spaceship? Would you be afraid to fly in an Elon Musk spaceship? Would I be afraid? Well, excuse me, Mr. Musk. If I were stuck in space, longing to go home, I’d be very afraid to fly in an Elon Musk spaceship. Very, very, very afraid.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective: